Kenyon: Dartmouth turns blind eye to rape trial

Jim Kenyon. Copyright (c) Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
Published: 01-31-2025 7:31 PM
Modified: 02-03-2025 8:56 AM |
While taking in portions of this week’s rape trial of a Dartmouth College alumnus ahead of a Grafton County Superior Court jury rendering its guilty verdict on Friday, I jotted down assorted observations.
■The young woman, an 18-year-old freshman at the time she was sexually assaulted at a fraternity party in April 2022, was flanked in the courtroom gallery by her family and, at times, a dozen Dartmouth students.
Bailey Ray, advocacy manager for Wise, an Upper Valley nonprofit devoted to helping victims of gender-based violence, was also a fixture. Wise has an office on the Dartmouth campus that’s open one day a week.
Conspicuous by their absence were members of Dartmouth’s administration.
I wouldn’t expect President Sian Leah Beilock to take time out from her fundraising chores to trek up to the courthouse in North Haverhill. But she could have dispatched a few underlings to publicly support the female student, now a senior, who had the courage to testify and then listen to days of graphic testimony from a seat in the gallery’s front row.
When I asked why college officials were a no-show at the trial, I didn’t get much of an answer. Jana Barnello, director of media relations and strategic communications, replied via email that Dartmouth provides “supportive measures to anyone who experiences harm on our campus during their time at Dartmouth and we continue to offer support to all impacted community members involved in this case.”
The lack of a presence was a stark contrast from last year’s court proceedings involving two Dartmouth student-activists charged with criminal trespass for staging a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest outside the college’s administration building.
Dartmouth sent several attorneys, along with members of Beilock’s inner circle and PR team to the misdemeanor trial in Lebanon District Court.
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Instead of pursing criminal charges against students for pitching a tent on the president’s lawn, Dartmouth might consider paying more attention to what’s going on inside its frat houses.
■The college’s silence in the case is deafening. I’ve seen nary a mention of the trial on the college’s “news” website. Presumably, it’s where alums can go to find out what’s happening at their alma mater.
Dartmouth doesn’t want them to know about the case of Kyle Clampitt, a 2020 graduate who was charged with multiple counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and second-degree assault. (Clampitt testified that the encounter was consensual.)
If not for The Dartmouth, the independent student newspaper, people on campus or alums might not even be aware that there was a trial, which suits the college’s administrators and fundraisers just fine.
From Dartmouth’s perspective, no news in this case really is good news.
■As the trial progressed, it became clear that Dartmouth has little oversight of its Greek houses.
Clampitt was 24 at the time of the assault at Theta Delta Chi, or TDX, where he was a former “brother” and had lived during his senior year.
It begs the question: Why are alums allowed to hang out at frat parties in the first place? Supposedly, a person needs a Dartmouth ID to get into a house party. Students told me the rule is rarely enforced.
Clampitt, who played lacrosse at Dartmouth, was back in town with other former players on the spring weekend of the sexual assault.
Clampitt told jurors that he arrived at the frat house at about 4:30 p.m. and stayed until around 3 a.m., before walking back to the Airbnb that he and friends had rented. On their way out of Hanover that Sunday morning, the alums stopped by the frat to “say goodbye to people,” Clampitt said.
As brothers lounged on couches, no one talked much. “I figured they were just hung over and tired,” he testified.
■After talking briefly at the party with Clampitt, whom she had just met that night, the woman testified that he asked her if she wanted to “see something cool on the roof like the stars.”
According to college rules, rooftops are off limits for safety reasons. Apparently, it’s just another rule where Dartmouth prefers to look the other way.
TDX kept a ladder that reached from the floor of the attic to a hatch in the roof. When Hanover police went to the four-story fraternity during its investigation months later, Lt. Michael Schibuola testified that he couldn’t access the roof. The hatch was boarded up.
Shortly after news of what had happened at the party began to spread on campus. a former TDX president sent out an email to community members, acknowledging reports of a “serious criminal incident” at the fraternity, The Dartmouth reported.
“It should come as no surprise to us that female guests often feel unsafe at our house,” said the email, which outlined measures being taken to enhance security. (I’m guessing that cutting off access to the roof was among them.)
■Heavy drinking is part of the weekend social scene on nearly every college campus. It always has been and probably always will be.
Dartmouth seems to take pride, however, in making drinking a sport. What would a Dartmouth fraternity be without beer pong tables in its basement?
Clampitt testified that after arriving at TDX, he played a couple of games while downing “six or seven” Keystone beers.
Before heading up to roof with the female student at about 2 a.m., Clampitt told jurors he was a “little drunk, but functioning.”
■The case — as disturbing as it is — has its Good Samaritans. After coming down from the roof behind Clampitt, the woman reached out to a fraternity member. “I didn’t know her name,” Umair Shahbaz testified.
He offered her a safe place to sleep in his room. In the morning, she walked alone back to her dorm in her stocking feet.
Her shoes were still on the fraternity’s roof.
Jim Kenyon can be re ached at jkenyon@vnews.com.